Just Bombdiggity
by likeglitterandgold
Summary: For 39CluesFan-Star. Merry Christmas! Just a Nedison oneshot. Edited as of 4/7/2019. T for language


**Okay, hi. This was originally written for the 2017 Gift Exchange, and I decided to edit it because I wasn't really happy with it. The not-bold stuff before the line break is the old A/N, while this bold stuff is the new. I basically went in, got rid of a lot of all-caps exclamations, changed some stuff, but it's pretty much the same. I deleted most of my other works, except the 39 Clues stuff, and I'm working on an Avengers fic that should be up soon. Is anyone excited for Endgame?! I know I am! I'm going on the 27 with two friends.**

For the Gift Exchange 2017 in the 39 Clues Archive. To 39CluesFan-Star, or Star.

Merry Christmas.

Here's the Nedison oneshot.

It's mostly dialogue.

THERE IS A HUMONGOUSLY IMPORTANT AUTHOR'S NOTE AT THE END!1

Disclaimer: I don't own the 39 Clues. Nor do I own Star Wars. Otherwise, Rey and Kylo would have totally been a thing.

Piece of my Randomness: Has anybody seen the new Chanel perfume ad? The one with Kristen Stewart for Gabrielle Chanel? I was at the aeroport, at AMS, and there was a Chanel ad, and my mum's like, that lady… she's a very famous actress. I can't remember her name.

Me: it's Kristen Stewart.

Mum: She looks fierce.

Me: They like Twilight.

Mum: Why?

Me: They took Edward Cullen's hair, and stuck it on Bella Swan's head.

Mum: We need to have a serious talk about your fandom addiction.

* * *

 _So comfortable, we cannot see the trouble, trouble_

 _Ah, so good_

 _Your rose-colored glasses on_

 _And party on (woo)_

 _Turn it up, it's your favorite song_

 _Dance, dance, dance to the distortion_

 _-Katy Perry, "Chained to the Rhythm"_

* * *

Madison Holt strides into the kitchen, looking for a glass of water after her workout. Running sixteen laps around the Cahill Attleboro Mansion, while racing your twin and older brother, no matter that you're a Holt, can be _tiring_. And of course she should've brought a water bottle out, but maybe, sometimes, things are a bit… hard to remember when you're trying to prove how tough you are.

But Madison Holt's not dumb, no. She's every bit as smart as Hamilton or Reagan, maybe a bit less. It's whether or not she chooses to apply it that matters.

Walking through the door, she stops dead in her tracks. _What happened?_ The kitchen looks like a bomb went off, things askew, soot marks _everywhere_ , but to her it looks _wonderful_ , explosions and dust and soot; and to come, Nellie's wrath.

It's only when she sees the person crouched behind the counter, that shock of red hair streaked with grime, that she laughs, not in joy, but in disbelief.

To think that _Ned Starling_ , that genius-Ekat, can't make a proper bomb, is unimaginable. Yet here she stands, in the wreckage of his mistake, the superior in this forte.

"Come to laugh at me, have you, _Tomas_?" he sneers, the disgust evident in his tone of voice. She doesn't blame him. After all, it _was_ her family who gave him those headaches. It _was_ her family who ruined his entire future. But she doesn't let him see that. Instead, she keeps up the rock-solid façade, keeps the _toughstrongertomas_ shield UP, and asks,

"You're making a bomb?"

"What's it to you?"

"Well, you aren't very good at it."

"And I suppose _you_ are?"

"Yup."

"I find that hard to believe. Very hard."

"Oh, you _do_?"

"OW! What the _hell_ , Holt?"

"Anyway, why don't I just _help_ you?"

"Fine."

And so they begin, mixing and pouring and realigning. Things blow up in their faces, they get sootier than humanly possible, and they laugh. They laugh, and in that moment, they are not a Tomas and Ekaterina. They are not rivals in the search for the 39 Clues. Not enemies, not Holts and Starlings. They are simply Madison and Ned, two teenagers without a care in the world. Just talking and socializing, taking the chance to see the other side of the spectrum.

"Starling, if Ted is short for Edward, does that mean Ned is short for Nedward?"

" _What_!?" he practically shouts, in shock. "Where the heck did you get that from?"

"So it's true?" she asks, thick fingers paused over a bottle of sodium chloride.

"Of course not! And why would Ted be short for Edward?"

"Is it short for Tedward, then?" Madison inquires mischievously.

"No! And neither Tedward _or_ Nedward is an actual name!"

"Oh, wanna bet?"

"I'll pass," Ned said uncomfortably, not liking the gleam in her eyes. "But on a different note, do you like movies?"

"Are nineteen-pound barbells easy to lift?"

"Errr… no?"

"Yes, yes they are. I like… Star Wars. Rogue One."

"You too? Why? Star Wars, I mean. Not Rogue One." Even though it's a perfectly reasonable movie to like, for some reason Ned can't process the fact that both he and a _Holt_ have the same taste. Maybe it's prejudice. Or maybe it's just the migraines.

"Everything. The action, the lightsabers, the Force, the Jedi, the amazing detail on the Star Destroyers and Darth Vader's' ship, the music, the characters, the creativity, the _bombs_ , especially the bombs, the flying, _everything_! It's all so… so…" she falters, searching for the right word. " _Bombdiggity_." she says at last, triumphant.

Ned looked at her incredulously.

" _Bombdiggity?_ What the heck is bombdiggity? That's not even a word!"

"It is so. Urban slang."

"Pfft. ANYways, I like Darth Vader." Ned scoffs.

"No way! The droids are the _best_! K-2SO, C-3PO, and R2-D2 are great! Especially BB-8!"

"You do realize that just rhymed."

"Don't you dare." Madison threatens, her voice laced with undeniable venom.

"But in The Last Jedi, I honestly thou- OW! HOLY SHIT, OW! STOP PUNCHING ME!"

"If you spoil ONE LITTLE THING, I will do MUCH WORSE things than _punch_ you."

"Was that an innuendo?" he teases, even though inside he thinks, _whatifitwaswhatwouldido?_

Punch. Madison shakes out her hand, wondering, _whydoicareifitwas?_

"No."

"And just to let you know, in The Last Jedi, BB-8 kicks _donkey_!"

"I'm so shocked by your language that I'm going to forget that you spoiled it. Who says _donkey_? Are you too afraid to say ass?"

"Whatever."

Ned doesn't care that she's a Tomas. Madison doesn't care that he's an Ekat. Ned doesn't care she's a Holt. Madison doesn't care he's a Starling. _Ithinktheyforgot._ To them, it's just good to have someone to talk to. Ned's family is broken. Madison's is a _noloveonlytoughnotears_. Maybe, just maybe, there is hope for reconciliation. Ted and Sinead will kill him. Dad will kill her. But no anger.

Protection.

 _Shieldmefromyourhate_.

 _Whatyouthinkwehavedone._

 _In a world without Ekats, Tomas, Lucian, or Janus. No Madrigals, no branches, no clues. Five siblings in harmony, to do great things in the world. Could things be different? Or is war inevitable? Were they destined to scream and cry and poison, and kill and hunt and feud? Family broken for five hundred-years, repaired in the stretch of a summer,_

 _maybe they all secretly, really, truly, honestly did wish for reconciliation;_

 _maybe the family completely broken was hanging by a thread;_

 _maybe it took one generation, an open-minded one;_

 _maybe they finally, FINALLY, found a thread strong enough to stitch a tattered, frayed cloth together._

"Color? Mine's blue."

"Purple. Duh. Animal? Moose."

"Cat. Branch? Ekat."

"Are you stupid? Tomas."

"No."

" _Not my question_! I was gonna ask, d'you reckon life would've been better without the Clues? I dunno."

"Me too. TV show? Seinfeld."

"The Simpsons. Candy? Pop rocks."

"Me too! Book? City of Ember."

"I don't read."

"You're lying, Holt."

"How do you know?"

"I put a micro-lie-detector on your hair tie, the one around your wrist."

" _What_!?"

" _STOP. PUNCHING. ME_. Is it bad? I promise I won't laugh."

"Oh, you will. Fine, I'll tell you. But you _cannot_ tell _anyone_. And give me that recording device." Madison huffs, begrudgingly.

"How did you see it?"

"I'm not stupid."

" _Really_?!"

"Shut _up_."

"So, what is it?"

"FINE! It's Saint Anything, okay?!"c

Ned looks at her, face red. His cheeks puff up, his eyes bulge, and Madison would take a picture if she wasn't so nervous.

"Pfft- AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! You like _Saint Anything_? Isn't that a _romance novel_? Oh my _gawd_ , I have to tell Te-" he was suddenly cut off by a hand clamped over his mouth.

"If you tell _anyon_ e, and I mean _anyone_ , I will kill you slowly and surely. And also, it's a crime and family novel, with a _side_ of romance."

"Fine." And he doesn't know why, but suddenly his thoughts get all jumbled and his heartbeat all wrong, and he thinks he's dying. Why else would he be completely unable to comprehend things? Surely not because she's _smiling_ at him.

And then with a lot of _excuse me_ 's and _that goes there_ 's, and _outta my way_ 's, the kitchen is spotless.

But then Nellie comes in, followed by the other Cahills, and they see, not two enemies, but two friends, smiling and laughing.

And then Nellie sees the spotless kitchen, the gleaming pots and pans, the wiped countertops, and she's about to exclaim in delight, when- _oh_ \- she looks up.

And up.

And up.

And up.

Through four floors, she can see, by way of that _bigblacksmokyhole_ in the ceiling. And they see Dan's room, to which Amy says, _clean it up, dweeb._ And they see Fiske's room, which is an abundance of pink, glitter, unicorns, and- actually, no. It's black. To which Jonah says, _whoa, so bland._ And they see the dining room, with the table housing a humongous _hole_ , to which Fiske says, _that was three century-years old!_ And they see Sinead's lab, dripping some sort of foreign unknown substance that _nobody_ wants to know what, to which Sinead says, _I've been working on that for months!_

But nobody can bring it in their hearts to scold them, for they've finally grown past their belladonna lenses, prescription morphing into rose.

And as the two of them share a secret, knowing smile, Ned rubs his arm fondly, thinking, _it's okay for her to like a romance novel, I guess._

Madison thinks, _he didn't really spoil it, I guess… but he's still a wimp._

And maybe, just maybe, there's hope for the future.

 _FIN_

* * *

 **Done! And the rose-belladonna reference was kind of a nod to Katy Perry's Chained To The Rhythm. Belladonna is a poisonous flower, so… yeah. This was for Star, and I'm really sorry it's late. Like, SUPER sorry. You would not BELIEVE how sorry.**

 _ **MERRY BELATED CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR'S, STAR! SORRY IT'S LATE!**_


End file.
